The whistleblower and the canary: rhetorical constructions of climate change

This paper is concerned with the historical dimension of the current debates on climate change, and argues that the history of the understanding of climate change has itself become part of the rhetorical account. Key historic moments of disclosure and revelation have become central to the ways in which climate change is presented as a persuasive narrative today. This paper takes a discursive approach to exploring the background of these signal moments in climate change history, and aims to show how they have helped to shape the terms of the current debate.